Efficient storage utilization using erasure codes in OpenStack cloud

Abstract

In the current era of connected devices, demands of data storage in the cloud storage systems are increasing exponentially and data is being generated at a tremendous speed. To reduce storage overhead, cloud file systems are transitioning from replication to erasure codes. In OpenStack, Swift component provides Object storage capabilities. The strategy Swift uses to achieve its reliability, availability and fault-tolerance properties of storage is Replication technique, which keeps more than one copy of each object (typically three). Information Dispersal techniques such as Erasure coding is a method of data protection in which stored information is dispersed in pieces across multiple locations. In this paper we describe this dynamic technique of erasure code policy in OpenStack Swift component to improve storage efficiency.